Come Fly With Me
by MyNameBeNobody
Summary: Young orphan Cassie Kincaid wasn't looking for complications when she hid inside a circus balloon after stealing some money, so when the circus magician jumps in and cuts the balloon free, she isn't all too happy to find herself in a whole new land of complications, witches, and weird moustaches. The land of Oz. OC/OC
1. You Gotta Be Kidding Me

**AN: This is not an Oz/OC fic, just to clear that up right off the bat.  
Also, I know, I know I need a beta. Volunteers? Anyone? Pretty please? **

Chapter 1: You Gotta Be Kidding Me

"Stop! Thief! Come back here, you little bastard!"

Cassie didn't even spare the energy to glance over her shoulder, that could easily cause her to trip and lose her lead, and she didn't need that happening to herself again. The heavy purse weighed down her left side, making her feel unbalanced as she tore across the uneven Kansas farmland. Her speed paired with the wind blowing strongly behind her was twisting her hair up into the air, the seething mass of red curls had escaped their bindings after her cap had fallen off, and she knew that she was going to be more knot than smooth by the end of this.

Her breath was coming in hard gasps as she pumped her legs swiftly, cursing again and in the back of her mind she muttered a prayer of thanks that she had started wearing pants. Although to be honest, she wasn't sure if god would listen to her thanks, if he was annoyed at her thievery.

She hadn't meant to steal again, she really hadn't! It had just been right there, the little black bag left out on the veranda, and when she'd peeked in and been greeted by the glitter of gold, what was she supposed to do? She had never seen that much money before in her entire life, and she couldn't help herself, her hand had just shot out and grabbed the bag, tying it around her belt just as the farmer came back outside.

She didn't even know what a farmer was doing with a bag of gold, albeit a little bag, but still. Cassie didn't think she'd ever seen a man that angry in her entire life, and she didn't think she'd ever run this fast either.

"Stop! Help, stop that thief!"

Cassie was forced to barge through a cluster of people on the road, thankfully most were too slow to pick up on the farmer's yells, but one man's hand shot out, grabbing a hold of her little rucksack. She was jerked back for a moment, before she gathered herself and wrenched out of the surprised man's grip, tearing off again.

She noticed that people all seemed to be heading in one direction, towards a cluster of tents and loud noises. As she got closer and closer, she saw that it was one of those travelling circuses that rolled around the country. Perfect, a place like this, full of people, she could find someplace to hide for a spell, then wait until the farmer had given up before she moved on.

Racing up to the entrance, Cassie was almost through when a man stepped out in front of her, causing her to skid to a halt.

"Whoa there, miss," he said, "It's 10 cents for entry."

"I...uhh..." Cassie looked over her shoulder, and saw the farmer hot on her heels, still shouting, "That man," she blurted out, "He's chasing me."

The circus man lifted his eyes to look where she indicated, and in that moment, she darted around him, into the throng of circus goers.

Now two voices called out behind her, but she didn't stop to look, weaving her way in and out of the gathered people, she kept her eyes open for a spot to hide. Casting around desperately, her eyes were drawn to something up high, and set themselves on a large balloon floating there.

"Perfect," she breathed softly.

Giving a cursory glance around, to see how many people were watching, she waited until she felt the least eyes upon her, before grabbing the mooring rope and hauling herself up. It was not easy, she wasn't used to doing this kind of thing, but adrenaline must have been lending her strength.

"_It's your Scottish blood, lass. You've got the blood of Clan Chiefs running through you, and that makes you strong."_

Cassie shivered, and nearly fell from the rope as a voice from her past whispered in her mind. She shook it clear, and heaved herself into the basket, ducking down quickly as she heard a now familiar raised voice coming closer.

"Shh, calm," she whispered to herself, trying to get her breathing back under control after her long dash.

The urge to poke her head above the basket, and check to see if the coast was clear was strong, but she forced it down. Her red hair would be as good as a beacon up here. Instead, she forced herself to calm down and start thinking, but that was getting harder and harder as adrenaline left her, and tiredness took its place. She pressed a hand against her cheek, feeling the warmth emanating from there, and knowing that her face was probably still blotched with red from the exertion of running, and cursed the annoyance that was the pale skin which came with red hair.

At least, she hoped it was from running, she wasn't sure if she had a fever or not. She didn't want one, but she'd been feeling so strange the past couple of days, and the warmth had been growing. She felt so tired, more tired than just the bad sleep one got from lying on the ground, the kind of tired that makes you want to just curl up wherever you are.

How had she managed to run for so long? Her thoughts were beginning to become jumbled. Who would have thought that the bottom of a balloon would be so comfortable? Maybe if she just rested here for a little, no one would notice.

"Forgive me mother, forgive me father," she murmured, as her lids slid shut, "I didn't want to steal. I'm...I'm..."

Sleep claimed her before she could finish saying 'sorry'.

**~0~**

_In her dreams she was riding. It wasn't a horse; she'd never done that before. And it wasn't a bicycle; she'd vowed never to get on one of those after falling of once. It was her father's shoulders, just like she'd used to do when she was a kid. He would swing her up high, plant her on his back, and parade around telling her stories in his wonderful Scottish accent. _

"_Clan Kincaid, that's us, lass," he boomed, "You're the daughter of the Highlands, and don't you ever forget it."_

"_But dada, I've never been to the Highlands," she protested, "How can I belong there?"_

"_It's in your blood lassie," he replied, "It's in that fiery temper of yours, in that fierce courage and devotion, in that hair red as a fire in mid-winter."_

"_Your hair isn't red though," she pointed out; tugging on one of his brown locks, "But you are of the Highlands too, aren't you?"_

"_Aye, but the red hair is for the special ones, like you."_

"_I think you're special, dada."_

_He threw back his head and laughed at that. He began to say something more, but Cassie was having trouble focusing on it, the ride had started to become jerky. Why was he doing that? His shoulders were moving unnaturally, jerking up, down, to the side. It wasn't comfortable anymore._

"_Da-_ OOPH!"

Cassie's dream was cut abruptly short as something crashed into her, something heavy.

"AHH!" it cried.

"AHH!" she cried at the same time.

"YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!" someone yelled from below.

The thing, a man she now saw, scrambled away from her, inasmuch as he could with the cramped space, and frowned, "What are you doing here? Who are you?"

"What am I doing here?" she echoed, "What are _you_ doing here!?"

"I-"

"DIGGS!"

He shut his mouth like a trap, standing up in the balloon, and looking down at whoever the angry man was with a smug little smile on his face. Cassie pushed herself up into a sitting position, rubbing her now painful leg where the man had landed. She missed a small bit of dialogue as she tried to assess how much her leg was hurting, but suddenly the balloon gave an almighty jerk downwards, as if it was being pulled back to ground.

That jolted Cassie into standing pretty quickly, despite the pain that shot through her leg at the motion, and she looked down to see the circus strongman heaving on the rope, helped by a clown.

The man in the balloon with her wasn't looking so smug anymore, and pulled out a pocket knife, beginning to frantically saw at the mooring rope to free the balloon.

"What are you doing? We'll be cast off!" she protested; but then another yell caught her attention.

"Thief!"

She looked after the voice, and groaned, the farmer she'd stolen from was one persistent man, she gave him that.

She turned back to the stranger, "Cut faster!"

"I'm trying," he snapped back; then gave a short laugh as he succeeded in separating the final strands holding the balloon to the ground. It released itself upwards almost at once, the jolt causing Cassie's injured leg to give up and dump her once more on the floor of the basket, while the stranger managed to keep his balance by holding onto the balloon.

Someone from down below must have thrown something to him, for he caught first a bag, and then a top hat. A top hat of all things! Cassie decided that he must be mad. What was he doing leaping into a balloon? And why was the strongman after him? The wind was picking the balloon up strongly now, tossing it around a little, and pulling it high and higher into the air.

He seemed to be laughing, and calling smugly down to those on the ground, until something made him turn around, and Cassie saw horror fill his face.

"What? What is it?" she called; having to shout over the noise of the wind.

He looked down at her with wide eyes, as if just remembering she was there, and simply pointed out in front of him.

Cassie used the rim of the basket to help pull herself up, a difficult task with the basket jerking the way it was, and felt all the blood drain from her face at what she saw.

A tornado, a dark twisting swirl of wind rose up right before her, and the balloon was being sucked into it.

"Oh sweet Jesus," she whispered softly, "This cannot be happening right now."

She turned to the man sharing the small space with her, fully intending to verbally lash him for not seeing the tornado before he cut the _both_ of them loose, but words were stolen from her mouth as the balloon was pulled into the buffeting winds, and she was unceremoniously hurled across the basket.

"Ahh!" she yelled; falling into the other side of the balloon, whacking her shoulder against the wicker.

She fought to keep her eyes open as wind tore all around her, hurling things into the balloon, tearing bits off of it. Something that looked like a organ or something hurtled over the top of the basket, prompting the man to drop to the ground swiftly, nearly landing on top of her again.

"Ahh!" he cried; as something spiked through the basket, narrowly missing him.

A similar cry came from her own mouth as the same thing happened to her. The both of them were kept jumping around the basket as more things crashed around them. Cassie ended up pretty much leaping into his lap so that they took up as little room as possible, her uncontrollable hair whipped him in the face, but she didn't have the presence of mind to apologise right then.

"Please, I can change, just give me a chance," he yelled into the storm.

"Oh god, oh god, I'm sorry for everything I've done," she found herself uttering in turn, "Just please, please help me now."

The storm seemed to pick up pace for a moment, and Cassie clutched hard at the stranger sharing the moment with her, and dimly was aware that he was gripping her tightly as well. She was getting dizzy look at the workings of the storm, so she screwed her eyes tightly shut and prayed silently for her parents to watch over her. She didn't want to die here, a thousand feet in the air with a stranger; she didn't want to die at all.

Eventually, the wind seemed to die down, the darkness lifted, and she felt light on the back of her eyelids. The man beneath her shifted, and she opened her eyes. He was looking around wonderingly, also noticing the change in their surroundings, he grinned down at her.

Cassie picked herself up off his lap, embarrassed now that there was no critical danger surrounding them, and remembered that she had no idea who this man was. She used one of the balloon lines to pull herself into a standing position, and looked out around her.

It was a miracle, surely. They were safe, the winds had gone, there was no sign of a tornado, and the land before them looked calm.

"Yes! Thank you! Yes!"

The man had stood up, and was shouting out to the sky. He turned to look down at her, and gave her a charming grin, "My apologies, my name is Oz, the great magician, and who might you be?"

Belatedly Cassie realised that he was quite handsome, and all her inexperience with talking to men rushed back to her in a flood. She found herself taking a suspicious approach, frowning slightly, she replied, "What kind of a name is Oz?"

"It's short for Oscar," he clarified; the grin staying on his face.

Cassie wasn't sure she trusted him, but she'd be rude not to give him her name, "My name's- whoa!"

Without warning, the balloon plummeted a few feet downwards, stopped, and then did it again. Cassie was unbalanced enough without being able to put much weight on her right leg, and the second jolt tipped her out of the balloon altogether.

"Help!" she cried; barely holding onto the rope dangling a few feet below the rim of the basket, "Oz, help!"

He reached out over the basket, "Grab my hand!"

Cassie strained upwards, but she couldn't pull herself up the rope enough to grab onto his outstretched hand,

"I can't!" she cried; true panic setting in.

"Try!"

Desperately, Cassie let go of the rope with one hand, and reached high up to try and grab onto him. Just for a moment, she felt her fingertips brush his, but then the strength of her other arm gave up, and she felt the rope burn as it slipped through her fingers.

"NO!" she heard him cry above her.

"HEEEELP!" she yelled; as the air whipped past her, and she plummeted towards the crystal blue surface of a river.


	2. This Ain't Kansas No More

**AN: Wow, reviews and alerts already! Thank you :3 **

Chapter 2: This Ain't Kansas No More

Cassie could no longer here Oz calling after her, she couldn't even hear her own screams, though the rawness in her throat told her that she was making them. All she could hear, feel, taste; was the roaring wind as she fell through the sky. Her too-big shirt flapped around her, her hair whipped around like a demon, lashing her face with a red-hot sting whenever it made contact.

Closer and closer, the water rose up to meet her. Those deep blue waters sparkling under the sun; twinkling invitingly, the dark depths waiting for her fast approaching arrival. No matter how strongly she wind-milled her arms backwards, she didn't slow down a whit. She didn't know if she had fallen for minutes, or for mere seconds, but she knew that she wouldn't mind falling longer so long as she didn't hit that water.

"AHHHHHHH!"

The moment before impact, Cassie drew her arms in around her head, covering her face as if that could somehow make this situation go away.

BAM!

She didn't hear what noise her body made hitting the water, but it felt like it would have been akin to that. It was _hard!_ Wasn't water meant to open up to let you in? This had felt like landing on a brick wall! She spluttered beneath the water as her momentum plunged her further down. The air had been knocked out of her, the shock of cold and impact had made her draw in a surprised lungful of water, and everything _hurt_.

Her leg had already been injured when she'd fallen, but now he entire body felt as if she had been hit all over by a house in that tornado, and her lungs felt full of fire not river water. When she stopped her descent through the dark and unfamiliar water, she turned her face up to the now faint light shimmering above her. Weakly, she tried to kick and pull herself to the surface, but she couldn't. She was too weak, the rucksack and little pouch of gold weighed her down too much, she couldn't even swim in normal circumstances.

As she felt herself falling more slowly down, and blackness began to cloud her vision, she felt the pain begin to recede. It was getting better. There seemed to be a slightly darker shape coming towards her? What... what could it be?

She opened her mouth, intending to call out, but only water rushed in, furthering the spread of black across her eyes.

_No,_ she thought dimly, as her eyes slid closed. _No, not like this. Not like mother and father._

A faint jerk on her shoulders, pulling her up. Was that her leaving her body? Perhaps this was what dying felt like.

**~0~**

Cassie first felt a strange tickling feeling on her face, which resisted when she tried to bat it away. Then she felt something open her mouth, press something hot over it, and suddenly her body was full of air. She struggled feebly against whatever it was, trying to wriggle herself away, but she was held down firmly. When the next lungful of air was forced into her, the feeling inside of her changed, and she jolted into a sitting position, whacking her head against something hard which exclaimed, and then half the river was coming up out of her lungs.

She coughed, hacked, and retched it all back up. If burned almost more than when it had gone down, but this was a good kind of burning, a purging kind. When it finally felt like she was empty, Cassie slumped back down, too weak and shuddering to do much else. She was breathing harder than she had been when she first got into the balloon.

The balloon...

A burst of strength shot through her, and she bounded to her feet.

"OZ! This is your fault! Get me out of here! HE-"

A coughing fit drove her back to her knees, and as numbness left her, she was reminded that she had fallen quite a distance down, on top of an already sore leg.

"Oz," she croaked once her coughing was done, "I don't know who you are, but I swear to god, if I find you, you are so dead."

A shy cough came from behind her, not the kind of cough she'd just been having, but one to grab attention. With a jolt of surprise, Cassie remembered that she wasn't alone, and spun quickly to face whoever was with her. Of course, she couldn't see for a few seconds after that, because her hair whipped around and plastered itself to her face in a tangled red mat. Once she'd pried herself free, she glared up at the stranger she was with.

"Who are you?" she demanded; figuring that she would have sounded more impressive if she was doing a frog impersonation, and if she could actually stand. As it was, she knew she wouldn't look that intimidating right now. Her wet clothes sticking to her scrawny frame, her red hair wild and wet, with her freckles no doubt standing out in sharp relief against her skin. Still, she must have had some effect, for the man took a step back, and seemed to be blushing beneath what had to be the most ridiculously long moustache she'd ever seen outside of a circus.

"I- I- I- I'm sorry," he stammered out, "My name's Bracken, I saw you fall," he pointed upwards, "And when you didn't come up again, I..." he trailed off with a shrug, stuffing his hands into his pockets as well as he could with his clothes as dripping wet as hers.

Cassie groaned, putting a hand to her head as she closed her eyes and sorted through the events she remembered. Being picked up by that tornado with that man named Oz. Being tossed and turned around. The calm after the storm; and then the jerk which had sent her tumbling through the sky, to hit the unforgiving surface of the river. The blackness closing in on her vision, and then... the shape, the jerk, the feeling of rising up.

She opened her eyes once more, and pushed a stray curl off her face, "You pulled me out?"

He nodded, straightening his water-wrinkled vest, and she didn't get more of a response out of him. He didn't seem dangerous, he seemed very shy and quiet in fact, and he looked normal enough. Wearing a plain coloured suit, though why he was wearing it out in the wilderness she couldn't understand, he had caramel coloured hair spiked up from his swim, and his eyes were pale blue. That blue, so innocent looking, so like her mother's eyes had once been...

She shivered despite the warm air, and pulled her gaze down from his eyes. That moustache really was ridiculous, what kind of place was this?

"You're in Oz," he replied.

Cassie started, "Did I say that out loud?"

Another nod, then silence.

"Oz. Oz..." she mused quietly, "Like the man in the balloon."

The other man, was his name Bracken? He perked up at the mention of that.

"I wasn't sure if I'd heard you right, when you were yelling before, at a man named Oz?"

She frowned, gently massaging at the pain in her leg, "Yes, that's what he said it was. Git," she added under her breath.

A grin broke out over Bracken's face, and Cassie decided that he couldn't be over 18, at the most.

"And is he a wizard? Can he do magic? Is he the one from the prophecy, the one who will save us?" his questions streamed out in an excited rush, and she could barely make one out from the other.

"Ha," she gave a sarcastic bark of laughter, "I doubt it, he didn't look like a wizard to me, just some stranger from the circus."

Bracken's face fell, "But, he is named for this land, he must be the one."

Something in the utter slump of his stature and tone made her recant a little.

"I don't know him," she admitted, "He might be, I was only with him for a few minutes."

Then most of what he'd been saying caught up to her, "Wait? This is 'Oz'? Where's that? That can't be in the States..."

He looked puzzled, "States?"

She looked around again, taking in the nearby river, the forest surrounding her, the mountains in the distance. None of it was familiar, none of it looked like anywhere she'd ever seen before. She wasn't in Kansas, she wasn't in America, and she wasn't even sure if she was still on Earth.

"Where am I," she said again, her voice no higher than a whisper, as she truly realised what was going on. "Oh god, this can't be happening. Something's wrong. I must have hit my head in the storm, I'm probably unconscious in the balloon with that moron. Or maybe I'm dead. This isn't possible, this isn't real!"

Her voice began getting higher and more panicked, as she flitted her gaze around the unfamiliar surroundings. She looked up at Bracken, who was looking at a loss as to what to do with her, and she bit her lip to stop it trembling.

"Where am I?"

"You're in Oz," he replied, "Where did you think you were?"

"I don't know." She looked down, drawing her legs up to her chest, and wrapping her arms around them, "I don't know."

She heard movement, but she no longer had the energy to look around. Within a few seconds, she felt something warm and dry being draped around her shoulders, and pulled the suit jacket close around her. He must have taken it off before he went in. Bracken sat nearby, not next to or in front of her, but close enough so that she knew he was there. Awkwardness seemed to radiate off him as he fidgeted around, and she had the suspicion that he wasn't used to dealing with company.

"Why did you jump in after me?" she inquired after a few moments of silence, "You don't even know me."

"Because you needed to be pulled out," he replied.

"But you could have drowned yourself," she protested.

He shrugged, and played with the ends of his moustache, "You needed it."

It was such a simple answer, and she wanted to protest further, but he became thoroughly engrossed in picking at a loose thread on his cuff, so she left him to it. Cassie looked around, and sighed heavily, which led to a mild fit of coughing. She supposed she'd swallowed more of the river than she'd thought.

"Well, father, I've certainly made it out of America," she said softly, "I just don't know if I'll ever get back to see the Highlands like I told you I would."


End file.
